Professor James Bernard Walsh:

I would add that iron deficiency in pre-menopausal menstruating women is something of which we are very conscious and obviously pregnant women are very conscious of their iron stores. It is important to point out that we do not often see iron deficiency in men. It is not often that one would see such a nutritional deficiency. Obviously with malabsorption syndromes iron deficiency would be a feature but in the absence of malabsorption syndromes, the ordinary run-of-the-mill person, apart from pre-menopausal or pregnant women, will not run into this problem. In fact, if a person is iron deficient, it is very important to look into it and exclude things like bowel cancer and other cancers that cause a person to lose iron. When we meet patients with iron deficiency, we focus on whether there is an underlying medical cause for it. We ask whether they are passing blood in the urine or rectally. These are the issues we examine and the focus must be on that.

Professor O'Neill's work in Trinity is very relevant and others have also shown us that iron and other elements are an important part of optimising the nutritional response.